San Marino, Huntington Library, HM 00128. Text(s): Pricke of Conscience, Here bigynneþ þe ferste part of þis book þat telleþ of mannys wrecchidnesse, Piers Plowman, Dominica prima adventus domini sequencia, Salus eterna. Exposition of Sequences, Piers Plowman, Siege of Jerusalem, How the Good Wife Taught her Daughter, Letters. Description: ff. 219 - Bound, s. XVI, in English stamped calf over wooden boards; the roll is of Oldham's class HM.a (17-23); 2 fore edge clasps closing to catches on edge of back cover, one survives; rebacked. - On the front pastedown, s. XVI, "Robert or William langland made pers ploughman"; beneath this, in the hand of John Bale, "Robertus Langlande natus in comitatu Salopie in villa Mortymers Clybery in the claylande, within viii myles of Malborne hylles, scripsit, peers ploughman, li. 1. In somer season whan set was sunne"; see R. B. Haselden and H. C. Schulz, "Note on the Inscription in HM 128," Huntington Library Bulletin 8 (1935) 26-27, suggesting that the manuscript which John Bale refers to in his Index Britanniae Scriptorum (ed. R. L. Poole, Oxford 1902, p. 509) as being in the possession of William Sparke may be identified with HM 128; see O. Cargill, "The Langland Myth," PMLA 50 (1935) 45 on the possible identity of William Sparke, and G. Kane, Piers Plowman: The Evidence for Authorship (London 1965) 37-42 and pl. 3 of the front pastedown of HM 128. Names of other possible early owners are: f. i, s. XVI, "Richard Rychard"; f. 101, s. XV/XVI, "Alleksander London [or Loudon?]"; f. 144v, s. XV, "cysley"; f. 149, s. XV, "betoun brygges" and, in the same hand, f. 153, "Maude." On f. i verso, a list of the contents of the book, dated in imitative medieval arabic numerals 1751; the same hand has occasionally annotated the manuscript, e.g. regarding the order of ff. 95-96, and on f. 92, across from Prick of Conscience, line 9138, "The other MS ends here." "The other MS" is probably London, Brit. Lib., Egerton 657 which breaks defectively at line 9138. Both Egerton 657 and HM 128 belonged to Adam Clarke (1760?-1832); HM 128 in the Catalogue of the Collection of Dr. Adam Clarke, complied by J. B. B. Clarke (London 1835) pp. 69-70, n. CXXIX (this number on the spine); his sale, Sotheby's, 20 June 1836, lot 352 to Thorpe; Thorpe Catalogue (1836) Suppl. n. 509. Acquired by Clifton W. Loscombe before 1838 (when F. Madden used it for his edition of art. 6); his sale, Sotheby's, 19 June 1854, lot 1167 to Upham for the fourth Earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878); see the Catalogue of the Manuscripts at Ashburnham Place (London n.d.), Appendix, n. CXXX; Ashburnham sale, Sotheby's, 1 May 1899, lot 78 to Quaritch; Quaritch Catalogue 193 (1899) n. 54. In January 1918 Henry E. Huntington selected this and other books from the collection of Ross C. Winans, at the time in the hands of G. D. Smith. - C. W. Dutschke with the assistance of R. H. Rouse et al., Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino, 1989). De Ricci, 54. Part 1: ff. 1-219v. Description: - Parchment - 168 x 240 mm - 1-27. Part 2: ff. 1-2v. Description: - Parchment - 168 x 240 mm - 2 columns of 42+ lines, each column 81 mm. wide, ruled in lead.

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